Cillian Murphy’s single favourite band of all time: “They’re very special to me”
When Cillian Murphy was young, he found himself in a position that could’ve taken his career down a completely different path. The Oscar-winning actor was offered a five-album deal for his band, The Sons of Mr Green Genes, which he had formed as a teenager with his brother, but the pair ultimately rejected the opportunity.
Music appeared to be Murphy’s first love – a passion that formed before he’d even taken a strong interest in acting – but he recognised the issues that would arise with signing to a label, subsequently making the right decision by refusing to become a professional musician. When Murphy discovered his love of acting at university, he quickly found a new creative outlet, making his screen debut with a role in the short film Quando in 1997.
The actor has since gone on to become one of the most successful actors of his generation, breaking into the mainstream with a leading role in Danny Boyle’s dystopian horror 28 Days Later. Although he has become acting royalty, with roles in everything from Peaky Blinders to Oppenheimer, Murphy has never abandoned his love of music.
He began presenting a radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music in 2020, Cillian Murphy’s Limited Edition, in which he shared some of his favourite pieces of music, revealing a very varied and impressive musical taste. However, out of all of the artists that Murphy holds dearly, there is one band that he calls his all-time favourite.
Talking to Rolling Stone about the use of music in Peaky Blinders, the actor shared his love for a certain group whose music has been featured on the soundtrack. “Radiohead are very special to me. They’re probably my favourite band in the world. I’d like to see a deeper collaboration there,” Murphy revealed. Commenting on the use of ‘Life in a Glasshouse’ in the show, he added, “You have to find a piece of music that can carry the weight of that and add something to it. There’s a depth to the music of Radiohead, and there’s an amazing complexity to Thom Yorke’s voice, and it just fits. Those guys don’t lend their music very much at all — they’re super choosy, so we were just very lucky.”
Radiohead are one of Britain’s most successful and coveted bands, having started out in the early 1990s with albums like Pablo Honey and The Bends. It was their seminal 1997 album OK Computer that cemented their place as musical geniuses, however, with the album’s array of carefully-crafted reflections of technology, capitalist alienation, and politics earning widespread acclaim.
The band have rapidly evolved over the years, experimenting with electronic music for albums like Kid A and Amnesiac, and proving their consistency with masterful records like 2007’s In Rainbows and 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool.
In an interview with the BBC, Murphy once revealed his love for a certain track from A Moon Shaped Pool, which is one of the album’s most beautiful moments. He concluded, “When Radiohead released ‘Daydreaming’, I listened to it five times in a row. I think it’s a remarkable piece of music.”
